Death of Gentoo

jpc82 · Guru Joined: 09 Mar 2003 Posts: 326

I have been reading about portage-ng, and I think all the features they have shedualed are great however I have a question.

One of the main themes with a lot of the new features are to allow it to be used on any *nix OS, whether it be OSX, Unix, or any flavour of Linux.

Now since Gentoo is portage (at least thats the way I feel), if this true cross compatibility is achieved and other *nix's start using portage, does anyone see Gentoo slowly dieing off?

For example if Redhat/Fedora start to use portage as thier main distrobution method, it would be great, however I could see Gentoo lossing a lot of users to Redhat because of it. And as more and more distro's start adopting portage, we would loss enough users to make Gentoo less importent, and have the focus shifted to portage.

I could see portage becoming more of a tool, then a integral part of the OS.

Athas · Posted: Thu Dec 04, 2003 7:14 pm Post subject:

Gentoo dying because of it's own succes? A definite possibility, but I, personally, will stay with Gentoo for the philosophy which it advocates - choice, which I believe is one of the integral parts of the Free Software philosophy.
_________________
Emacs-optimized danish console keymap - My .emacs
Climacs - next generation Emacs.

Mindstab · Posted: Thu Dec 04, 2003 7:58 pm Post subject:

gentoo is more than just portage

for one things
its a distro that ships default with portage
where as portage could be ported to other platforms, it wouldnt be the native package managment system

so gentoo will always be optimized for portage

next there are lots of other things, like the gentoo init system, which i believe is unique

gentoo really is a meta distro though
it will never die, but it might shift into a large project about portage and package managment which also offers a dedicated distro if you want.

jpc82 · Guru Joined: 09 Mar 2003 Posts: 326

but what I'm trying to say is that Gentoo is **currently** the only distro that defaults to portage, but when once portage is truly cross compatable others may start to default to it also. Then gentoo losses its biggest selling point, and thats when I see portage loyalist(not gentoo loyalist) start to move to other distros.

Also I agree that gentoo does have other features over other distos, but portage is by far the biggest,a nd most important

semiSfear · Guru Joined: 08 Jul 2003 Posts: 302 Location: Adelaide, SA

I love seeing packages getting compiled, I love the Gentoo pingu, I love that weird looking cow, I love this forum. So I guess I won't switch to another distro just because they implement portage.
_________________
DnB is my religion, Jungle is my church.

hadfield · Posted: Thu Dec 04, 2003 9:02 pm Post subject:

First of all, I don't see a company like Redhat dropping RPM for portage anytime too soon. They've invested way too much in RPM to just drop it for some silly "compiling from source" package management system. :wink:

The same goes for debian and any other company who's spent a lot of time (and money) developing their own package management system.

That being said, the only reason one of those companies would decide to drop their own package management system is because everyone wants to use portage. And they'll only know that everyone wants to use portage because everyone is switching to gentoo because it's the only distro that comes with portage by default. And by that time it'll be too late, everyone will be using gentoo and won't want to switch back because of gentoo's other wicked features. Sure, a few users might go back to Redhat or whatever, but not enough to make a difference. Like how many people here would switch to Redhat just because they start using portage, I know I wouldn't.

telex4 · l33t Joined: 21 Sep 2002 Posts: 704 Location: Reading, UK

You won't see Debian switching anytime soon. Apt is essentially as good as Portage, plus or minus a few futures, but is based upon binaries, so there's no point in their switching.

Nor will you see the likes of RedHat, SuSE and Mandrake switching to Portage; if they were to change their package management system, they'd naturally go to Apt, being binary based (and so more friendly to your average user) and alsready having some integration with the RPM architecture thanks to 3rd party projects that are now slipping into Fedora.

Cerement · Guru Joined: 14 Jun 2003 Posts: 404

Gentoo is portage.
Gentoo is source.
Gentoo is a unique init system.

But, more importantly than any of these:

Gentoo is these forums!

This community, this willingness to help each other is what makes Gentoo better than any other distro and why it will survive.

syko · Posted: Thu Dec 04, 2003 11:46 pm Post subject:

If someone else can use Portage to come up with something that is better, then more power to them -- it's what open source is all about. I wouldn't be so worried about whether or not Gentoo is the ultimate Linux distro, because in the end it just doesn't matter. I mean, the distribution isn't about making money (or else it wouldn't be released the way it is) so there isn't really any reason to start competing. I mean, I'm absolutely grateful to all the devs who work on Gentoo for all of the amazing work they've done and I always will be, but if I find something that works better for me, I'm going to use it. Does anybody really suffer from my switch? No, because I'm not paying anybody for it (I'd like to donate, I really would, but I have no money or job -- maybe in a year or two).

I don't mean to sound ungrateful for all that the people behind Gentoo and Portage have accomplished -- it's quite the opposite -- but in a free (as in speech and beer) environment, there isn't much point in competition. The only reason I want Gentoo to succeed (and I do) is because I see a lot of potential still in it. There are a lot of things that still haven't been explored in distributions today and I think that Gentoo has the ability to realize a few of them. At the same time, though, so does Fedora, or Suse, or Mandrake, or whatever other distro you want to talk about. I choose what works on a technical level and what works towards the common good of knowledge (wow, that sounds corny).

In short: don't worry about whether or not Gentoo is going to win the distro wars. If it works, use it. If you like it, contribute. If you don't like it, you have options so pick one.

gsfgf · Veteran Joined: 08 May 2002 Posts: 1266

Fedora hasn't killed debian b/c they use apt. Same idea for gentoo.
_________________
Aim:gsfgf0

hook · Posted: Fri Dec 05, 2003 4:07 am Post subject:

at work i'm trying to convert that RH9 crap i have to work with into something more useful = i'm trying to get portage to run on it - no go yet, i have to figure out _which_ _parts_ of baselayout i need to emerge in order not to fuck up the RH system and have enough at the time to be able to emerge portage.

hmmm, RH/MDK/DEB/... deciding to drop RPM/apt-* in order to get portage? ....hmmm a nice portage to emerge crappy .rpm? ...i think if they get it to that, they'd have to make a very good campaigne crapping people's heads full of why (the real) portage's great, and let out that redhat-portage won't be able to use most of these options - between .rpms and .ebuilds is a BIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIG gap

if debian wouldn't have apt-get, i'd guess they'd be the first (and only?) in line for portage

p.s. you know i was never a distro (or an OS) zealot, but using RH9 at work, you don't know what blessing it is to get on my gentoo at home!!
_________________
tea+free software+law=hook

(deep inside i'm still a tux's little helper)

shm · Posted: Fri Dec 05, 2003 4:45 am Post subject:

Beekster · Apprentice Joined: 26 Nov 2002 Posts: 268 Location: Sydney

Most other distributions are version/upgrade based. Portage changes the paradigm of how to upgrade &/or stay current, and switching to that is a big step for any company in the business of making distributions.

I mean why would anyone ever buy the next release, once they have Gentoo or a future equivalent installed?

ikaro · Advocate Joined: 14 Jul 2003 Posts: 2527 Location: Denmark

today distros borrow stuff from other distros in order to expand them selves,
even today ive tried Yoper ( www.yoper.com ) which has stuff from redhat , slackware and Gentoo.
Kinda takes the best of whats around and build a nice distro out of it.
So if you stay with gentoo or not, its more a question of "religion"

Once a Gentooer - Always a Gentooer .... the same goes for Fluxbox

_________________
linux: #232767

ewan.paton · Posted: Fri Dec 05, 2003 8:30 am Post subject:

i would really like to see a comercial gentoo based distro[1] come out like the userfriendly debian based ones for a simple reason, gentoo is not for everyone and IMHO should stay the way we all like it. portage on the other hand may would benifit massively from an increase in users simply because of the amount of developers,extra funding and eposure it would attract

[1]you know the sort of thing, gui install & management tools
_________________
Giay tay nam | Giay nam cao cap | Giay luoi

uglyman · Posted: Sat Dec 06, 2003 12:16 am Post subject: things change

Well things change quickly in the industry. I am 22 years old and I have already seen many new products come and go. I think it would be foolish to predict that gentoo would be around forever. Everything has its place in history, and some things outlive there welcome (ahem errr a MS(cough)). That is simply the nature of things. I hope that gentoo has a good long run as one of the more successful distros out there. Gentoo has a lot to offer. I have learned more than most could imagine possible from these forums, for example. I feel I have made friends here.

The nice thing about open source is that products don't really die like they do in other buisness, (where did mtn dew live wire or crystal pepsi go?) but OSS products live on, with their ideas, and often their actual code passed to future generations of software. That is the strength I see in open source in general, and especially in gentoo.

Do I think gentoo will be around forever? NO,
do I think it will leave it's mark? I think it has and will continue to do so.

come to think of it:
do I think that windows will be around forever? god I hope not
do I think that windows has left a positive mark of any kind? NO....well maybe but don't expect a yes from my keyboard.

Things will change, but lets just hope that there will be a happy place in software land for us and our children, whether it is gentoo or something not yet forseen.

later
uglyman

Barkotron · Posted: Mon Dec 08, 2003 11:11 am Post subject:

Brother Dysk · Posted: Mon Dec 08, 2003 11:26 am Post subject:

I'd switch if there was a BSD distro with portage. Short of that...

woodwizzle · Apprentice Joined: 30 Nov 2003 Posts: 225

Portage is what brought me to gentoo, but the forums are what have kept me here. I've only been using linux for a month or two and in that time I've given quite a few distros a try. Debian's APT quickly made me give up all RPM based distros, but when I started to have troubles with APT I gave Gentoo a shot and I havn't looked back (or anywhere else for that matter) since.

Gentoo - Come for the Portage, Stay for the Forums.

Stormy Eyes · Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2003 2:06 am Post subject: Re: Death of Gentoo

blaksaga · Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2003 7:07 am Post subject:

Portage is nice...but if portage didn't exist in gentoo, I would still use gentoo.

I would rather use gentoo than redhat or some other distro any day. The community here is great etc so I don't see gentoo dying off even if other distros start using portage. You might see less new users using gentoo however because the incentive to use it over other distros would weaken.

NME · Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2003 10:52 am Post subject:

i come from a tradition of debian

the main thing that brought me to Gentoo was indeed portage (up-to-date packages, optimisations), but after finding out the degree of control i have in Gentoo i'm now confident that i will remain using it.. until something better comes along

_________________
f# that.

Suicidal · l33t Joined: 30 Jul 2003 Posts: 959 Location: /dev/null

I would stick with gentoo if others started using portage as well. I learned more about the inner workings of Linux through the install process than I did using redhat for 6 months. In addition bieng able to choose more up to date packages and optimizations will keep me here.

Skippo82 · n00b Joined: 04 Jan 2004 Posts: 8

i am a absolutly newbie for gentoo. i used win98/2000/xp ever - but sometimes i searched for an alternative OS and brought redhat, suse and debian and installed them. after that i heard from gentoo and installed it ,too. i can say that gentoo ist the most future genereted and powerfull OS i saw.
the control over everything is granted and whatever your OS is doing - can you say that know exactly what it is? and gentoo has the ability to change and doing anything directly during procceses - so my decision for the future will be Gentoo Linux.
_________________
AMD-XP 2600+/ASUS A7N8X/768MB-RAM/NVIDIA Grafic RIVA TNT 2/

Abraxas · l33t Joined: 25 May 2003 Posts: 814

I am a firm believer that Gentoo will be around for quite some time. In my searches for the perfect distro Gentoo rose to the top because it seemed to be the most forward looking distro out there. This is due mainly to the community. The community is involved in the process. Suggestions are taken and incorporated into future revisions. A perfect example is Portage itself. There was a big discussion on what the new version of Portage should incorporate and it seems that all the excellent suggestions will become a part of Portage. As long as things continue this way Gentoo will thrive.

EDIT: I don't want to take anything away from drobbins. His initial vision of what Gentoo should be was an excellent starting point. Gentoo was a distro of the future from the beginning but the community helps keep it on the cutting edge.